First of all, thanks to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for the hours of her time that she gave me, even as she went from crisis to crisis. I think it must be inordinately difficult to have someone following you around who is writing a book about you and who refuses to show you anything she’s written. Madame President was gracious and patient during the four years it took me to complete this book.
For two books now, Marysue Rucci and Dorian Karchmar have pushed, tugged, prodded, and yelled at me (for my own good, they claim). Without them, I’m not sure I would have finished those books, of which I am proud. At Simon & Schuster, Marysue is my friend, editor, adviser and emergency retail-therapist. Perhaps most important, she is the one who dials back the flip tone that has always peppered—some say plagued—the way I write. At William Morris Endeavor, Dorian is, bar none, the best agent in the business. She is a fierce fighter on my behalf, a close friend, and a visionary thinker all wrapped in one. I can never say enough how glad I am to have her in my corner.
This is the second book that I’ve done with both Simon & Schuster and William Morris Endeavor, and I remain happy with the incredible people at both of these companies. Jonathan Karp was instrumental in helping me shape this book when I came into his office mumbling of wanting to do something about women in Liberia. Megan Hogan was one of my first readers, and her insight and suggestions were invaluable. A big thank-you also to Lisa Healy, Judith Hoover, Amanda Lang, and Ebony LaDelle. At William Morris Endeavor, Ari Emanuel called me right after the merger just to touch basewhile I was, surprise surprise, shopping at the Prada outlet in Italy. When I think of all the similar calls he would have had to make, that’s pretty impressive. Meanwhile, Theresa Brown, Jeff Lesh, and Anna DeRoy have all promoted me in ways that I never thought possible.
And finally, back at Simon & Schuster, Zachary Knoll did heroic work getting me up to speed on how to use a computer. I wish that preceding sentence was a joke, but it’s not.
As they did with my first book, the good people at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars once again gave me a place to work and research: Jane Harman, Robert Litwak, and Michael Van Dusen. Thanks also to Arlyn Charles for her quiet competence.
On a trip to Saudi Arabia, Jeffrey Goldberg offered to read my working draft because he had spent time in Liberia. I didn’t give it to him then because my precious baby wasn’t ready to be edited yet. But then I ran into him at Costco on a Sunday afternoon two years later, and he repeated his request. And, boy, am I glad I took him up on it. Jeff gave me an intense, four-month edit, eliminating all my Yiddish (said Yiddish didn’t belong in a book about Liberia), sprinkling the copy with some gravitas, giving it a full magazine edit, and being an all-round mensch.
David Rothkopf—at one of our many lunches at the Palm, the only restaurant he would eat at between 2006 and 2013—first suggested I write a book that looked at how all the countries that treated women shabbily were the ones that were in the worst shape. I told him that was too depressing, but it gave me a germ of an idea.
And then Philip Parker, just after the Liberian elections in 2005, told me stories about some of the shenanigans staged by the Liberian women seeking to get Ellen Johnson Sirleaf elected. And somehow, between David Rothkopf and Philip Parker, my germ of an idea started to form.
At the New York Times, Dean Baquet and Jill Abramson graciously gave me a year’s leave to go to Liberia and follow Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. After I returned to work and Liberia was hit by Ebola, Dean threw the weight of the New York Times behind me when I asked to go back to cover it. And once I was in Liberia during the Ebola crisis, the embrace of that great institution really came to bear, as everyone from Arthur Sulzberger to my colleagues in the Washington bureau checked on me daily. On the foreign desk in New York Greg Winter was a fantastic and always calm, editor, while in Washington Rebecca Corbett, Elisabeth Bumiller, and Carolyn Ryan helped me to think through my stories while at the same time making sure that I wasn’t doing anything stupid. “What’s your temperature today?” they asked, again and again. “Thirty-five point four,” I answered. “What’s that in real numbers?” they said. “Ninety-five point seven,” I said. “Isn’t that low?” they said. “Yeah,” I said, “but if I drop dead, it won’t be from Ebola.”
At the Pentagon, Rear Admiral John Kirby got me on an American military flight to Liberia in the middle of the crisis. It was the first time I had ever flown from Washington straight to Robertsfield Airport, and let me just say, the direct Andrews Air Force Base–Robertsfield flight shortens the normal travel time considerably. On East Luray Avenue, my friend and neighbor Wendy Becker Moniz gave me a sharp galley edit, pointing me to missing commas, quotation marks, and redundancies.
My Times colleagues Mark Landler, Scott Shane, Eric Schmitt, Carl Hulse, Jennifer Steinhauer, Michael Schmidt, Thom Shanker, Jackie Calmes, David Sanger, Matt Rosenberg, Jeff Zeleny, and Maureen Dowd gave me a ton of book advice. Mark Mazzetti gave me an emergency Chapter 1 crash reading during one of the many deadlines that I blew. And Michael Shear installed Dropbox on my new laptop after my old one crashed and incinerated all of my files.
In Torgiano, Italy, Vittoria Iraci Borgia gave me a place to write for two and a half beautiful months at her La Montagnola agriturismo and olive oil estate, while Carmela Guzzo kept my stomach full of pasta and porchetta and taught me how to make limoncello when I had writer’s block.
Shailagh Murray gave me a deep early edit and an early warning about losing the flip tone. Steve Cashin and Steve Radelet answered countless questions about global financing, debt relief, and the black economy, and gave me all the color I greedily requested and some that I didn’t, including the color of the BlackBerry that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf used in 2006.
During the London writing phase of my book leave, I was helped by Daniel Levy, Tony Faiola, Bilgin Kurtoglu, Suki Yamamoto, Jim Courtovich, Sarah Herzog, and Isabella Lisk, while Barnaby Phillips told me to get a British Library membership. My landlady, Melissa Berman, allowed me to use her British Museum pass. So I had two fantastic edifices in which to bury myself when writing.
I had so much help in Liberia. Estrada “Jeff” Bernard and Jennie Bernard were generous with anecdotes about life in Liberia in the 1950s. Ethel Holt-Toles, Phemie Brewer, and Shirley Brownell scheduled me time with President Sirleaf. Veda Simpson pointed me to a naked George Weah. Wilmot Dennis and Francis Dunbar were both enormously helpful during my reporting. And Danai Pateli flew all the way from Athens to Monrovia to furiously help me conduct many interviews with the Liberian women in this book—interviews that the two of us emerged from, hours later, in awe over the strength of these incredible women.
I talked to more than a hundred Liberian women in reporting this book, including Parleh Harris, Grace Kpaan, Vabah Gayflor, Masawa Jabateh, Bernice Freeman, Rosie Hungerpillar Sehaack, Etweda Sugars Cooper, and Lusu Sloan. They, and dozens more, were honest and raw with me as I picked through unbelievably painful parts of their lives. To revisit the most traumatic points of your own history is no easy thing. Without them, this book would not exist.
Finally, I am enormously indebted to my family. My brother-in-law Aleksandar Vasilic challenges everything that comes out of my mouth before I can put it to paper, which is helpful in separating reality from delusion. My other brother-in-law, John Walker, walked me through Liberian governmental bureaucratese. My beautiful nephew Cooper welcomed me back home with a running, jumping hug each time I returned from my long reporting and writing trips. My equally beautiful nephew Logosou gave me encouragement when I needed it, as did my brother, John Bull, and my sister-in-law, Pieta.
My mother, Calista Dennis Cooper, came home to Liberia with me when I first went to start work on the book and helped keep me sane during the initial bruising weeks, especially the day when the security guard at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told me I couldn’t enter the building in a short-sleeved blouse. My sister Marlene Cooper Vasilic read draft after draft, telling me when to expand and when to, yes, cut the flip tone. My sister Janice Cooper pointed me to sources, relevant issues, and stories. My sister Eunice Bull Walker told me how to find Taywah Taylor’s husband. There was also a point when all three of my sisters, Janice, Eunice, and Marlene, were all home in Liberia with me at the same time. With my mom. It was a rare and incredibly emotional experience to find myself surrounded by the strongest women I will ever know, while beginning work on the story of the strongest women Liberia will ever know.